The Princess Read online

  They were given transport on an army carrier, but this time there was no attempt to make the interior luxurious. J.T. dozed in his seat, opening his eyes only now and then to make sure Aria was reading the history book he had brought with him. He quizzed her on Christopher Columbus and then on the Pilgrims. She answered all his questions correctly but he didn’t give her one word of praise.

  When she started on the third chapter, he fell asleep, so Aria removed one of her movie magazines from her purse and placed it in front of the history book. She might have succeeded if she hadn’t leaned her head back and also fallen asleep. The book fell open on her lap.

  “What is this?” J.T. demanded, startling her awake.

  “It’s swell, isn’t it?” she asked, half awake.

  To her surprise, she saw J.T. almost smile but he seemed to catch himself. “You’re supposed to be reading about Colonial America,” he said softly. The noise of the plane enclosed them and their heads were close together.

  He was quite good-looking from this distance. “Isn’t there more to America than history?”

  “Of course. There’s entertainment.” He nodded to her movie magazine. “But you’ve seen that. And there’s family. Maybe I can explain how the American family works.”

  “Yes, I would like to hear something besides history.”

  He thought for a moment. “Everything in the American family is absolutely equal, divided fifty/fifty. The man earns the money; the woman takes care of the house. No, wait, it’s not really fifty/fifty, it’s more sixty/forty or perhaps seventy/thirty since the man’s duties carry a backbreaking responsibility with them. He’s the one who always has to provide for his wife and children. Whatever they need, it is his duty to give it to them, to make sure they want for nothing. He works day after day at his job, always giving, always there with that check, asking little in return but giving much. He…” J.T. stopped and straightened in his seat. “Well, you get the picture. We men do very well at holding up our end, even while you ladies spend your afternoons drinking tea.” He sighed. “And war is our duty too.”

  “I see,” Aria said when he had finished, but she didn’t see at all. “By ‘take care of the house’ do you mean that if the roof leaks she fixes it?”

  “No, of course not. She calls a roofer. I mean she cleans the thing, washes the windows and such. Cooks. Of course she doesn’t fix the roof.”

  “She washes windows? What about floors?”

  “She cleans all of it. It’s not such a big deal. After all, it’s only housework. Anybody can do it, even a royal princess.”

  “You say she cooks. Does she also plan menus? Clean the dishes?”

  “Of course. The American housewife is very versatile, and self-reliant.”

  “What if there are guests? Does she cook for them? She doesn’t serve, does she?”

  “I told you that she takes care of the house and whatever’s in it. That includes guests.”

  “Does she take care of clothes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Children?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Who helps her with correspondence?”

  “The man usually turns his paycheck over to his wife and she pays the bills, buys the groceries and whatever the kids need.”

  “I see. And she drives a car?”

  “How else can she get to the grocery?”

  “Amazing.”

  “What’s amazing?”

  “As far as I can tell, the American housewife is a secretary, bookkeeper, chambermaid, chauffeur, caterer, butler, maid, chef, treasurer, lady-in-waiting, and nursemaid. Tell me, does she garden also?”

  “She takes care of the yard if that’s what you mean, although, if he has time, the man may help on that.”

  “One woman is lord chamberlain, lord steward, and master of the horse all in one. And yet she has time to spend her afternoons drinking tea. Utterly amazing.”

  “Could we drop this?” His earlier softness was gone. “It’s not like you make it sound.”

  “Of course men did start the war, didn’t they? I don’t remember any woman wanting to bomb another woman’s children. But then she may have been too busy drinking tea or clipping the hedges or washing the dishes or—”

  “I’m going to the can.”

  Aria picked up her history book but she didn’t read it. Perhaps being an American was going to be more difficult than she thought.

  When the plane landed in Key West, there was transportation waiting for them and the driver took them through narrow streets overhung with bright flowers to a two-story house next to a large cemetery. The houses next to it were very close.

  J.T. opened the wooden gate with its peeling paint as the car drove off. “I don’t know how the navy got us a house. There’s a year-long waiting list.”

  Aria had a hideous vision of standing in line for a full year.

  The house was tiny to Aria. The lower floor consisted of one room that was living–dining room, then a half partition hid some of the kitchen. There was a bathroom containing a large white machine also on the first floor. Up steep, narrow stairs was a long room, a double bed at one end, a single bed concealed behind the bathroom wall. The house was filled with wicker furniture and painted in pale blues and pinks.

  J.T. hauled all of Aria’s luggage upstairs. “I’m going to the base. Unpack our clothes and hang them up. The army said they’d furnish the place so I hope that means food. When you get done, hit those books again.” He paused a moment at the head of the stairs, seemed about to say something, then turned and left the house.

  There was a balcony leading off the upstairs and Aria went outside to look at the narrow street below and across to the cemetery.

  “Hey! Is anybody home?” she heard a man’s voice from downstairs.

  “J.T.?” she heard a woman call.

  How odd, Aria thought. Did people always walk into one another’s houses in America? She walked to the head of the stairs. Below her, coming in the door, were three couples.

  “Wow!” said one of the men looking up at her. “Are you J.T.’s heartbreaker?”

  They all stopped to stare up at her. Aria might not know how to dress herself or how to count money but she was quite confident of herself as a hostess. “How do you do?” she said regally, descending the staircase as if she were floating.

  “Princess!” came another voice as Bill Frazier entered the door, a pretty blonde behind him. “I mean…” He trailed off, embarrassed.

  “I am—” Aria began.

  “Princess will do,” one man said, laughing. “It suits you. Princess, let me introduce this clan. We came to welcome the new bride.” He introduced Carl and Patty, Floyd and Gail, Larry and Bonnie. Bill introduced his lovely wife Dolly to her. There was another guest, a bachelor named Mitch.

  Mitch took her arm. “J.T.’s a fool to leave a beauty like you alone.”

  “Where did you get that dress?” Patty asked. They had each brought casseroles and grocery bags of food.

  “Is that silk?” Bonnie asked. “Real silk?”

  “I thought you two just flew in today. If I had on a dress like that, it’d be a mass of wrinkles!”

  “I think I’d die for a dress like that.”

  Aria desperately wanted these American women to like her. They wore pretty, flowered cotton sundresses and cool-looking sandals. Each had short hair that looked so young and carefree, and they wore dark red lipstick. Standing before them in her silk suit, her long hair drawn severely back, she felt old-fashioned—and very foreign. They were looking at her expectantly and she searched her mind for something that would please them.

  “Lieutenant Montgomery bought me several dresses that are still packed. Perhaps you’d like to see them.”

  One minute Aria was standing in the living room and the next she was being pushed up the stairs before a herd of stampeding women.

  “What about dinner?” a husband called, but no woman answered him.

  Ten minutes lat